The New Woman (28 page)

‘Wally can’t see beyond his own ego,’ I said, relieved that the conversation was back on the safe ground of school politics; Fran’s story had unsettled me. The shortcomings of our headmaster continued to be a shared passion, and we were soon talking shop. Jim seemed in no hurry to leave, and I was very glad of his company, so I suggested a stroll across the fields. Casino appeared from Luke’s carpentry shed and fell in, trotting along beside us. He likes to go for a walk.

That walk was a tonic for me. We wandered all the way to the farmyard and back, talking about all kinds of things. I felt as though I were having a holiday from my failure as a wife. We were on our way back when Jim came out with something astonishing.

‘I’ve been very slightly in love with you for a long time,’ he said as we crossed the last stile. ‘I think you know that.’

I was speechless. It’s one thing to flirt with a colleague, quite another to be fighting off declarations. I’d forgotten how it felt to be desired by someone other than Luke. Then again, despite the toe-curling awkwardness, I felt a bubbling champagne rush of pleasure. There’s a teenager in all of us, and mine was blushing.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to knee me in the balls. I’m going to leave now. I won’t do anything embarrassing.’

‘I think you just have.’

‘Better get used to it. When the news comes out that you’re separated, you’re going to be fighting them off. Men you’ve known as friends and colleagues will look at you differently. Wally Wallis is going to be a royal pain in the backside.’

‘Wally? He’s not interested in me!’

‘Ha! Believe me, I know how it works. I’ve been through the divorce machine myself.’

‘So you’re getting in before the rush?’

‘Precisely.’

‘I’m flattered.’

We’d arrived at his car. ‘Thanks for coming around,’ I said as he opened the door. ‘And don’t worry about your student. We’ll have him using a laptop in no time.’

Autumn sunlight has a special brilliance. It lit up Jim’s eyes, with their fan of smile lines. I felt the old spark, the fizz of possibilities.

‘I just wanted you to know,’ he said.

Casino and I watched him drive away. I’ll admit it: I was smiling. After all, I’m only human.

Later that week—thirty years and seventeen days after we married—a judge in Oxford pronounced decree nisi. We were halfway to divorce. Neither Luke nor I was there to hear it. Our case was read out as one of a long list of failed unions. Production-line divorce. My marriage was in its last gasps.

Twenty-nine

Luke

It was like landing in the middle of a sitcom. The coffee was dreadful, but the armchairs were comfortable. I’d never been to a support group before; I didn’t think of myself as that kind of person. I was in danger of giggling, out of sheer nerves.

It was Usha Sharma’s idea. If she and I had been stuck on a desert island together, one of us would have built a raft very quickly; but as a counsellor she did me good. I’d arrived in her room all wound up, and spent our session talking about the decree nisi. She asked me about what she called my ‘transsexual community’ and ‘support networks’, as though my life were a social whirl.

‘What community? I don’t know anyone like me,’ I protested. ‘Only online. Wish I did. D’you want me to be visiting clubs in Soho or somewhere?’

‘Hmm. Perhaps not. They can be quite, um, well . . . let’s just say I don’t think you are their target customer. But there are some groups. Hang on.’ She swung around to her computer, printed out three addresses and gave them to me. The most convenient was the parish lounge of a church in Barking, once a week. The Jenny Marsden Trust.

‘It’s a peer support group,’ Usha said. ‘People at every stage of transition. Why not give it a try?’

‘What do I wear? Will they throw me out if I don’t turn up cross-dressed?’

‘There are no dress codes.’

‘As a male I feel like a fraud. As a woman on the tube, I’ll probably get beaten up.’

‘Well. What are your options?’ Usha sat with one raised eyebrow, waiting for me to answer my own question. She had this obsession with me finding my own solutions. It was irritating, because sometimes I just wanted information. I daydreamed occasionally about getting revenge: she’d come into Bannermans and ask me for urgent legal advice on some corporate matter—not likely, I know—and I’d sit back and smile enigmatically, like the Sphinx, and say, ‘Well now, Usha. Let’s unpack that, shall we? What are your options?’

‘All right,’ I conceded huffily. ‘Perhaps there’s a middle course.’

At four o’clock the following Wednesday, I was on my way to Barking. In the end I’d settled on black trousers, a silk blouse and my mulberry jacket. I kept my head down on the tube and didn’t notice anyone staring at me. Another milestone.

According to the map, the place wasn’t far from the station. Yes, there it was—a brick-built church squashed in among jumbled housing and an Italian restaurant. A door at one end stood open. I read a board propped up against the wall:
Jenny Marsden group.
My steps faltered; then I scurried right past. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk into that place, and meet a bunch of strangers, and try to be one of them. My limbs felt shaky, so I sat down on a low wall.

It was one of those times when I felt too tired to go on. I missed Eilish. I missed being able to walk down the street or travel on the tube without fear. I felt panic, deep in my chest, and had to shut my eyes and mouth to stop it from breaking out in a great yell.

I didn’t hear the footsteps.

‘Hi,’ said a voice.

I looked up quickly, brushing my eyes on my sleeve. Jesus was standing there. Well, he looked like the Jesus you see in children’s picture books. He was a young man, thin as a breadstick, with a wispy beard and soulful eyes. He was smiling gently at me. I half expected him to hold out his hands and show me the wounds. Perhaps that meant I was Doubting Thomas.

‘I’m Neil,’ he said. His accent was East London, rather than first-century Palestine. ‘Were you looking for the Jenny Marsden group?’

‘I was, but I’ve just remembered . . .’ I began to stutter, racking my brains for some excuse to run away. ‘I’ve just remembered this appointment . . . Okay. Yes, I was.’

‘You’ve found us. Come on in.’

It was impossible to refuse. He led me back along the street, chatting all the way. He wondered whether I might be Lucia. He’d read my email. People often missed the place. They needed a bigger sign.

The parish lounge had been partitioned off from the body of the church, carpeted and given a false ceiling. I gathered, from all the crayoned pictures on the walls, that a Sunday school met there. People stood around in small groups, and I heard a murmur of conversation.

‘What’s your poison?’ asked Neil, stopping by a hatch into a kitchen. ‘Coffee? Right.’

‘Who was Jenny Marsden?’ I asked.

He pointed to a glossy photograph on one of the noticeboards: a smiling girl wearing a mortar board and academic gown. It was the sort of graduation photo that people display proudly on their mantelpieces and Facebook profiles. ‘Jenny was a research scientist,’ he said, handing me a mug. ‘She was also a trans woman. She took her own life.’

‘When?’

‘Back in the nineties. Her family didn’t want anyone else to feel as isolated as she did, so they set up the trust in her memory.’

I looked again at the picture. Jenny had curly hair and apple cheeks. She didn’t look despairing.

‘It’s easy to smile, isn’t it?’ said Neil. ‘When people are watching you.’

‘True.’

‘You’re welcome to come along on the twentieth of November. That’s the Transgender Day of Remembrance. We light a candle for Jenny as well as the others.’

I’d had no idea such a day existed, and made a mental note to look it up; but I didn’t have time to ask more because Neil was steering me across the room. ‘I’d like you to meet Chloe,’ he was saying. ‘She’s here today for the first time, like you, and she’s a bit nervous. In fact, she accidentally walked straight past, too.’

Seconds later, I found myself face to face with a young warrior princess, albeit one sporting a leather miniskirt and cut-off top. She was standing awkwardly holding a glass mug, though she should have been driving a chariot.

‘Chloe,’ said Neil. ‘Meet Lucia. This is her first visit as well.’

Chloe’s features melted into a wide and artless smile. She was a beautiful girl; tall—strikingly tall—with dramatic features, a bronze complexion and long, braided hair.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘So you’re another new kid on the block.’ It was a deep voice, unmistakably male. For a moment I was tongue-tied. I’d lived with gender dysphoria all my life but never knowingly spoken to a real-life trans woman before, let alone one in a miniskirt. I wanted to scuttle outside, leap into a taxi and hightail it back to the flat. This was a world outside of my experience.

Hypocrite!
I scolded myself.
Snob!

I wasn’t sure of the etiquette. Should I shake Chloe’s hand, or would that give me away as a stuffy old trout: white, middle-aged and middle-class? She was wearing perspex platform shoes. Dear God, I thought, why does someone with legs like that need platforms? There was a generation gap even with us outcasts.

Chloe didn’t seem to notice my confusion. She was happy
to talk; all I had to do was listen, and that suited me. Within a couple of minutes Neil had moved on, leaving us deep in conversation. Chloe had a habit of laughing uproariously when she got to the most painful parts of her story. It was unsettling. She told me that she was twenty-two, and from a town near Manchester. She’d started taking hormones when she was fourteen, in an attempt to stop her adolescence in its tracks.

‘Fourteen?’ I was surprised. ‘So . . . were you at the children’s clinic?’

‘The where? Oh, the kids’ place! D’you think my mum would let them anywhere near me? No!’ Laughter. ‘I bought the stuff myself. Internet.’

I was shocked at the idea of a fourteen-year-old ordering hormones on the black market and experimenting alone. I was so rattled that I didn’t think before I asked my next question; it was a stupid mistake. I asked her what she did for a living.

‘I’m a working girl.’ She said it carelessly, assuming I’d understand. When I didn’t, she dissolved into more laughter. ‘There are guys out there who’ll pay a premium for what I’ve got. I’m a bit of a niche market.’

‘Oh!’ I was desperately trying not to look scandalised. ‘I see. At least, I think I see. That must be . . . um, actually, I’ve no idea what that must be like.’

For once she didn’t laugh. She shrugged, and her eyes were blank. ‘Pays the bills,’ she said. ‘I’ve got qualifications, just can’t get a better job.’

‘What’s your training?’

‘Computing, catering . . . I used to be duty manager in a restaurant. Anyway, that’s enough about my boring life! How about you? How do you pay your bills?’

This vibrant young woman had just revealed that she was a prostitute. As life stories go, it was a hard act to follow. I had to confess that I was a city solicitor and spent most of my days helping multinationals to push vast sums of money around. I’ve never felt so square. Chloe lit up, however, because her cousin
was a legal executive. She and I were getting on like a house on fire when Neil called the group together. My new friend stuck to me like glue, folding her long legs into the chair next to mine and whispering that she didn’t know anyone. I felt protective.

We were a mixed assortment of human beings: men, women, people whose place on the gender continuum was impossible to categorise. To my astonishment, it turned out that Neil had begun life as a girl. There were twelve of us in all, sitting in a circle. That’s when I felt the bubbles of nervous laughter inside me. I wished Eilish were there. Perhaps I could phone afterwards and tell her about it? No, perhaps not.

They didn’t make me say anything, so I said very little beyond introducing myself. Other people talked about their week; about their challenges and triumphs. One person was upset about a speeding ticket, another was worried about her father’s dementia. A girl called Joanne had at last received her new birth certificate, and brought along birthday cake to celebrate.

When the meeting broke up, Chloe left with me and we walked together to the tube station. I noticed some sidelong glances. I suppose we were a bizarre duo: a glamorous young Amazon in perspex heels, striding beside a middle-aged androgynous creature wearing a blue silk blouse. Chloe was Kate’s age, and yet she’d already faced down the world. I wished I’d had her mettle when I was young. We chatted as we walked. She said she was almost two years into her RLE. Ah yes, the Real Life Experience.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

‘Oh. My. God.’ Chloe made an anguished face. ‘You know.’

‘I don’t, actually. I haven’t done it.’

‘It got a lot easier once I had help with my hormones. But will my body behave? No, it won’t! Those ole levels are still up and down like a kangaroo. I’ve had my moments.’ She held up crossed fingers. ‘But I’m getting there.’

‘What brought you to London?’